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Male superb lyrebirds
Male superb lyrebirds can mimic the sounds of an entire multispecies flock during courtship and mating.
The study suggests that males use the flock mimicry to deceive females into believing there is a predator nearby and thus preventing them from breaking off courtship or leaving before copulation, thereby increasing their chances of successfully mating.
Researchers say the elaboration of this mimetic song could be driven by male deception and sexual conflict, rather than females’ preferences for male extravagance and male-male competition, which are the most common explanations for sexual selection.
Mennonites deforest Peruvian Amazon
Article written for Mongabay’s Chasing Deforestation digital series.
Host Romi Castagnino travels to the central Peruvian Amazon Rainforest, where a deeply conservative religious group, known as Mennonites, has been illegally deforesting land and encroaching upon Indigenous territories to expand their agricultural fields.
Satellite data show that Mennonite colonies are now the leading cause of large-scale deforestation in the Peruvian Amazon.
Romi talks with leaders and members of two Indigenous communities affected by the Mennonite-led deforestation and also visits the Mennonite colony of Masisea, the one responsible for the illegal clearing.
Cat corridors between protected areas
Only 4% of the jaguar’s critical habitat is effectively protected across the Americas, and in Brazil’s Cerrado biome it’s just 2%.
A survey in Emas National Park in the Cerrado biome concludes that the protected area isn’t large enough to sustain a viable jaguar population, and that jaguars moving in and out could be exposed to substantial extinction risk in the future.
The study suggests that improving net immigration may be more important than increasing population sizes in small isolated populations, including by creating dispersal corridors. To ensure the corridors’ effectiveness, conservation efforts should focus on resolving the conflict between the jaguars and human communities.
Mongabay spoke with Cheyne Flanagan from the Port Macquarie Koala Hospital to discuss the marsupial’s current status in the aftermath of the Australian bushfires.
Around 50 koalas have been hospitalized in New South Wales due to this season’s fires. It is estimated that thousands of koalas have been killed by bush fires.
Port Macquarie Koala Hospital’s wild koala breeding program is critical. But unless they have good quality habitat that is well managed and cannot be developed, then breeding koalas go out and struggle with logging operations, removal of trees for human development, housing, mining and agriculture.
Deciphering the dialects of naked mole-rats
Naked mole-rats have their own dialects that differ between colonies of the rodents, researchers have found.
The virtually blind animals communicate underground through squeaks, grunts and chirps, and have an “accent” that is determined by the queen of each colony.
This shared dialect “strengthens cohesion and a sense of belonging among the naked mole-rats of a specific colony,” says Alison Barker, lead author of the new study.
The finding has important implications for the understanding of our own history, by potentially shedding light into how human linguistic culture evolved.